De Blasio Flies Home from Vacation on $3 Million NYC Counter-Terror Plane

New York mayor Bill de Blasio returned home Thursday from his vacation property in Canada on a $3 million plane purchased by the city for counter-terrorism operations, the Daily News reports.

De Blasio, who flew to Canada on a commercial flight, was returning to New York City to attend a ceremony renaming a city street after a fallen NYPD officer. It was the first time he used the plane, according to City Hall spokesman Eric Phillips.

Advertisement

The plane, which is outfitted with high-tech sensors and infrared cameras, was purchased to conduct flyovers of New York Harbor and examine incoming ships for radiation. The city paid for 25 percent of the plane’s total cost while the Department of Homeland Security covered the remaining 75 percent.

“If we detect a potential dirty bomb in the port, it’s already too close,” Inspector James Coan, commanding officer of the NYPD Aviation Unit, told the Daily News in October. “The plane allows us to detect an anomaly a half-a-day to a day before it reaches the port.”

De Blasio previously faced criticism for using an NYPD helicopter to travel from Brooklyn to Queens in 2014. “I really don’t understand what this is all about,” he told reporters at the time when asked about the controversy.

The Democratic mayor’s use of a city-owned SUV to travel eleven miles to his preferred YMCA gym in Park Slope, Brooklyn has also drawn criticism from activists, who claim it is at odds with his public environmental advocacy.

Recommended Articles

Most Popular

When a newspaper publishes a bombshell op-ed, it doesn’t want the chief casualty to be its own credibility.
But this is what has happened with the New York Times and the op-ed it ran by Arkansas senator Tom Cotton this week advocating using federal troops to quell riots.
The piece caused a revolt among ...
Read More

When a newspaper publishes a bombshell op-ed, it doesn’t want the chief casualty to be its own credibility.
But this is what has happened with the New York Times and the op-ed it ran by Arkansas senator Tom Cotton this week advocating using federal troops to quell riots.
The piece caused a revolt among ...
Read More

In 1969, Irving Kristol was appointed Henry R. Luce professor of urban values at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He delivered his inaugural lecture the following spring. Its title, “Urban Civilization and Its Discontents,” a play off of Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, ...
Read More

In 1969, Irving Kristol was appointed Henry R. Luce professor of urban values at New York University’s Stern School of Business. He delivered his inaugural lecture the following spring. Its title, “Urban Civilization and Its Discontents,” a play off of Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and Its Discontents, ...
Read More

It was nearly 20 years ago that my first piece was published here on NRO. I described my experiences as an undercover cop circulating among the protesters at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, held that summer at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Eager to prevent the type of bedlam seen in Seattle the ...
Read More

It was nearly 20 years ago that my first piece was published here on NRO. I described my experiences as an undercover cop circulating among the protesters at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, held that summer at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Eager to prevent the type of bedlam seen in Seattle the ...
Read More

Remember when we were told that the administration of Donald J. Trump posed a pernicious threat to science and medicine? In an attempt to sharpshoot Trump’s most famous scientific claim, one of the world’s leading medical journals just blew off its own foot.
What other possible explanation can there be for ...
Read More

Remember when we were told that the administration of Donald J. Trump posed a pernicious threat to science and medicine? In an attempt to sharpshoot Trump’s most famous scientific claim, one of the world’s leading medical journals just blew off its own foot.
What other possible explanation can there be for ...
Read More

A vigorous argument has erupted over the proper way to restore order in the face of riots, arson, and looting following the death of George Floyd. Should local police be supplemented by the National Guard, or by the Army, or would that make things worse?
Tom Cotton led the charge for the “Send In the ...
Read More

A vigorous argument has erupted over the proper way to restore order in the face of riots, arson, and looting following the death of George Floyd. Should local police be supplemented by the National Guard, or by the Army, or would that make things worse?
Tom Cotton led the charge for the “Send In the ...
Read More

Did you know there is a giant loophole to the legally enforceable social-distancing guidelines of the COVID-19 pandemic?
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio was reminded by a reporter earlier this week that retail stores and houses of worship had been closed for months. All public gatherings were limited by law ...
Read More

Did you know there is a giant loophole to the legally enforceable social-distancing guidelines of the COVID-19 pandemic?
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio was reminded by a reporter earlier this week that retail stores and houses of worship had been closed for months. All public gatherings were limited by law ...
Read More

Anonymous members of New Jersey’s Pandemic Response Team have sent a letter to state lawmakers to inform them that Governor Phil Murphy and Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli have ignored expert advice in dealing with coronavirus, especially in handling the state’s nursing homes.
In the letter, which ...
Read More

Anonymous members of New Jersey’s Pandemic Response Team have sent a letter to state lawmakers to inform them that Governor Phil Murphy and Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli have ignored expert advice in dealing with coronavirus, especially in handling the state’s nursing homes.
In the letter, which ...
Read More

About twice as many white people as black people are killed by police. In fact, in about 75 percent of police shootings, the decedent is not black. Of course, that is not what you would grasp from consuming media.
Take the website statista.com, specifically its breathless focus on “Hate crime in the United ...
Read More

About twice as many white people as black people are killed by police. In fact, in about 75 percent of police shootings, the decedent is not black. Of course, that is not what you would grasp from consuming media.
Take the website statista.com, specifically its breathless focus on “Hate crime in the United ...
Read More

More than 15 years have passed since the late Philip Roth published his dystopian semi-autobiographical novel, The Plot Against America. Only now has Roth’s powerful speculative fiction of 1940s America under a Nazi-sympathetic Charles Lindbergh administration been adapted for the screen, in a recent HBO ...
Read More

More than 15 years have passed since the late Philip Roth published his dystopian semi-autobiographical novel, The Plot Against America. Only now has Roth’s powerful speculative fiction of 1940s America under a Nazi-sympathetic Charles Lindbergh administration been adapted for the screen, in a recent HBO ...
Read More